I choose this quote, which is about the Romans’ views of people past and present, mainly because it seems that it is the same views that people have today. The quote says more or less that most Roman people believed that people in the past were virtuous; and that now (or what was "now" for them) everybody was a scum-bag. In the past people cared about the state, the Nation, the group, and now people only cared about themselves and money. As long as the economy was good, people were happy no matter how corrupt things got. In the past to them, people cared about helping others, and being involved, and now people were just killing each other. This viewpoint seems very, very similar to the view that many Americans have now. I always hear about "we didn’t kill each other in those days", and how "politicians were just" etc. etc. and now everyone wants to kill each other; and all our politicians are like Bill Clinton. It seems to me they shared almost the exact same viewpoint as us, the "good-old-days" view of things.

To me this seems to mean one of two things; or I guess it could possibly be both. The first would be that it is actually true, and that our culture has lost most of it’s morals, and/or the government is starting to get too corrupt. That would be bad. I don’t think the morals thing could be all too true, as if one looks through history they can see moral times much lower than ours, from not all too long ago. (And of course from very long ago.) However in the government and society thing, stronger ties can be seen, as the United States and Roman Republic are very similar. Both are the largest, most powerful, nations of their times, both have/had thriving economies, and both are or were complained about for the bureaucracy and corruption that developed over time. It can be also be argued that both are or were in a time when people simply didn’t care about government. Hopefully our country does not suffer the same fate as that of the Roman Republic (although it must be said that the resulting Roman Empire didn’t fare too badly.)

The second option would be that it is simply human nature to go by the "good-old-times" idea, that it is simply a easy way to blame problems. This seems to be at least partially true. Every generation seems to think that the following generation is inferior, or that he past generations were more modest and helpful to mankind. Others would be that "everything was simpler and easier" in the past. It seems that humans almost use time as a scapegoat for causing problems. It’s easy to say something that is no longer around, nor can be brought back was better than whatever exists now. It’s impossible to disprove it.